It was a very strong showing for the SRSS soccer club as they hosted and won a tournament against some pretty stiff competition.
"We typically have to plan our own spring season," coach Steve R4898ebizant explains. "We have to get exhibition and tournament action in because there are no teams or schools of our size in zone 13, so we created an exhibition series the weekend after last, and it ended up being only a single game. This past Friday, we organized a tournament where we had city teams coming out. We wanted some of the better city teams to come out in order for ranking purposes. It was a busy weekend for some of the teams, so it ended up being a four team tournament, but it was really solid in terms of the competition."
SRSS was going up against some heavy hitters, but according to Rebizant, the group really rose to the challenge. "We battled West Kildonan, Windsor Park and Murdoch McKay Collegiate. We had a very successful tournament, we went 3-0 and won our own tournament, which is called the Rur/Ban (Rural/Urban) Classic. It was really good."
For Rebizant, winning was terrific but it's how the team went about coming up with the victories that makes him really happy. "At the start of the year and even throughout the indoor season, early on we've been struggling at scoring at will. We've been a very good defensive team, having a good defensive set up, but we've lacked flare and the ability to rack up goals. But, that's coming along now, we've been having a little bit better time with that. Our attack mentality has developed more and we're willing to take some chances, bare down and work hard when it comes to finishing around goal."
More to that Rebizant focused on the results against one team in particular. "We really wanted West Kildonan because it was the one team that we didn't get to see at the Maple City Wide tournament. Typically in games or seasons like basketball and volleyball, you have weekly rankings but with such a short season after getting outside, you don't really have that scenario. Rankings are important if you qualify for provincials and just to gauge our own ability against some of the teams from the city. We wanted to play some of the stronger teams from those zones, West K being technically the champions of the first flight in the Maples City Wide tournament and us being the champions of the B flight, we wanted to make sure we could play them. We did and we beat them fairly handily 5-0. One could argue that they are technically the number one ranked team right now. So, I really like the level at which we're beginning to play with some of these teams that have the advantage of having multiple club teams feeding their school systems."
As the team continues to grow and gel, Rebizant believes that full buy-in will boost the team to another level. "It's really great, the guys are excited to come to practice. We have a huge amount of reserves and future players that are joining us at practice, they provide enough players for us to easily play full field matches at every practice. Everybody is kind of gleaning all the benefits from that. Guys are excited and we're hoping that we're stepping forward and peaking at the right time, like last year. We want to carry it on to provincials, if we're lucky. We play an inter-zone vs Winkler, both our boys and girls teams will have to qualify by playing a single game, in Steinbach, 3:00 PM on May 21st with the winner going on to provincials."